The Work At Home Link Blog

Posts Tagged ‘information overload’

Information overload is one of the most crippling problems for people who work at home from their computer. There is so much to do and learn. Everywhere you turn, there are new ebooks to read, blogs to follow, forum discussions to participate in, audios and videos to listen to. You subscribe to the newsletters of a dozen gurus. The next thing you know, it seems like you’re running in place, putting forth a ton of energy but never really making progress.

One of the keys to successful self-employment is productive use of time. Working at home means no one is looking over your shoulder. You don’t have to punch a time clock, so no one notices if you work two hours a day or twelve. But if you’re putting in a full day, or even if you’re working two or three hours a day around a full-time job, what do you have to show for the time you are putting in?

If you clearly know what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s easier not to get sidetracked. Each night before you go to bed, make a clear plan of what you are going to accomplish the next day. Put 3-5 things on your to do list and make sure those things get done. They may be adding an entry to your blog, writing a chapter in an ebook, sending out a newsletter, doing keyword research, working on an adwords campaign or learning something that you don’t yet know how to do (read an ebook or watch a video on a specific topic). Set a time limit for how much time you will spend on each task.

To further bring things into focus, you need to decrease the ton of information that is coming at you. Unsubscribe from newsletters that you never get around to reading. Turn off the TV. Complete one or more items from your “to do” list before side-tracking yourself with reading emails. In fact, for most people, a time limit has to be set for reading emails than for any other area.

Do what you can with each day. The more you plan ahead to take charge of your own time, the less information overload will sidetrack you and distract you from where you’re trying to go.

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